Zoonotic implications of white-footed mice habitat selection and territoriality in fragmented landscapes
Journal of vector ecology : journal of the Society for Vector Ecology(2023)
Abstract
White-footed mouse (Peromyscus leucopus) populations can thrive in fragmented suburban and urban parks and residential spaces and play a pivotal role in the spread and prevalence of tick-borne diseases. We collected spatial data on 58 individual mice living at the intersection of county park land and residential land in suburban Howard County, MD, U.S.A. We analyzed mouse density, home-range size and overlap, and a Bayesian mixed-effects model to identify the habitats where they were found relative to where they were caught, as well as a resource selection function for general habitat use. We found that as mouse density increased, home-range size decreased. The overlap indices and the resource selection function supported territoriality coupled with site-specific space use in these suburban mouse populations. While mice occurred in open areas, forest edge, and forest, they showed a strong preference for forested areas. Interestingly, mice captured only 30 to 40 m into the forest rarely used the nearby private yards or human structures and this has direct implications for the placement of rodent -targeted tick control treatments. Our study supports the need for zoonotic disease management frameworks that are based on site-specific land cover characteristics as well as specific management objectives. Journal of Vector Ecology 48 (2): 89-102. 2023.
MoreTranslated text
Key words
Habitat use,integrated tick management,Lyme disease,Peromyscus leucopus,resource selection functions,urban ecology,white-footed mouse,zoonotic disease
AI Read Science
Must-Reading Tree
Example
![](https://originalfileserver.aminer.cn/sys/aminer/pubs/mrt_preview.jpeg)
Generate MRT to find the research sequence of this paper
Chat Paper
Summary is being generated by the instructions you defined